Decision doesn't change racial realities

Many had hoped Barack Obama's presidential triumph would usher in a post-racial America, one in which race would no longer be considered a determinant of the quality of one's social and political experiences.

Well, that hope has materialized, but with an insidious twist. While racial discrimination remains, Mr. Obama's presidency seems to have become an excuse to weaken and erase decades of hard-won civil rights gains.

We hear it in the attacks on affirmative action, that the election of a black president means we no longer need measures to ensure a diverse representation in our schools, universities and other public institutions.

We are hearing it now in the Supreme Court's decision to remove the provision of the Voting Rights Act (section 5), that prevents nine states and a number of counties and municipalities from changing election laws without advance federal approval.

"Our country has changed," said Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for the majority. "Largely because of the Voting Rights Act, voting tests were abolished, disparities in voter registration and turnout due to race were erased, and African-Americans attained political office in record numbers."

The chief justice was channeling critics of the Voting Rights Act, such as Edward Blum, director of the not-for-profit Project on Fair Representation, which underwrote the challenges to the voting rights law and affirmative action.

"The America that elected and re-elected Barack Obama as its first African-American president is far different than when the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965," Mr. Blum said prior to the Supreme Court decision.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took apart such nonsensical claims in the scathing dissent that is a must read for anyone interested in the legal and social significance of the Voting Rights Act. In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg said Congress, which is charged with enforcing VRA, should be the one that decides whether the remedy is still justified, not the Supreme Court.

She further noted that Congress, which last renewed the law in 2006 after extensive hearings, "brought to light systematic evidence that 'intentional racial discrimination in voting remains so serious and widespread in covered jurisdictions that section 5 preclearance is still needed.' "

"Although the VRA wrought dramatic changes in the realization of minority voting rights, the Act, to date, surely has not eliminated all vestiges of discrimination against the exercise of the franchise by minority citizens," Justice Ginsburg wrote.

We saw the many ways in which a number of states tried to dilute minority voting in the last election with racial gerrymandering moves, voter identifications laws and changes in voting days and hours that negatively impact minority voters.

Patricia Yancey, president of the Worcester branch of the NAACP, noted that with the Supreme Court's decision, "millions of voters are now unprotected" from such changes. And while laws and other political decisions that discriminate against minority voters can be challenged "after the fact, such challenges will put great financial burden on those trying to change laws that are already in effect," she said.

And although the court said Congress can authorize a more "updated" preclearance provision in the Voting Rights Act, Ms. Yancey said given the current partisan congressional climate, such an expectation is "laughable."

"They have gutted the core of this law, and the responsibility is now on us to become really active and elect legislators who will fight to bring it back to where it was."

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